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Point Blank
A rumored treasure hoard, a superstition almost as old as space travel, a name attached to the dread of the dark unfeeling void, Point Blank is one of the most feared hazards encountered outside of known space. Said to be a vast starship graveyard somewhere in the galaxy, located in some unknown point in space far away from any world, point blank is both the most sought after and most feared location ever to exist. Origin There have long been rumors about ships and fleets getting lost in the middle of nowhere due to combinations of things such as mutinies, computer and/or engine failure, and pirate ambushes that were only partially successful, but few were ever discovered due to the vastness of space. Tales of lost ships were commonplace and fake coordinates to ship graveyards were just as common (some of these false coordinates were so overused that smuggling groups started using them to arrange meetings) but no one could have been prepared for the discovery of Point Blank. The first encounter The rumors of Point Blank started when the navigation system of a small cargo ship started to malfunction during a routine shipment of starship maintenance equipment to the Frontier. The ship suddenly stopped in mid-transit to find itself surrounded by the remains of a fleet that appeared to be completely devoid of life. The crew immediately set out to perform the tasks of repairing their ship via the reappropriation of their own cargo and to discover the identity of the fleet they encountered. The inside of the derelict fleet's flagship was a hollowed out mass of scrap metal and broken machinery. It seemed like the result of a routine pirate attack until the cargo bay was examined, crates of valuable treasures, things such as semiprecious gems, valuable spices stored in airtight containers, lost art from various worlds and the like were virtually untouched, while shipments of base metals had been largely picked clean. The crew of the cargo ship paid little attention to the oddity of such an occurrence, focusing on the value of the remaining valuables; the crew members in the cargo hold had started to load some of the cargo aboard their own ship when they heard a scream coming from elsewhere aboard the derelict. They arrived at the source of the outcry only to find the partial remains of one of their security team members dead along the main corridor; a gruesome sight, random organs had been picked clean out of the chest cavity and the head was completely gone. The evacuation of the ship was unsurprisingly swift, the rush from the initial mad panic was completely overshadowed by the rate with which they ran after actually seeing the horrid mass of disfigured flesh and metal that started to chase after them. The remaining survivors of the creature's second attack eventually made it back to their cargo ship and quickly detached the docking extension from the other ship, their ravings about a hideous abomination of life terrifying the crewmembers that had opted to stay and repair their own ship. The highest ranking survivor of the attack gave the order to fly away from the dead ship's wreckage until the repairs on the ship's systems were complete, an order which led to a shocking discovery of the area they had arrived at. Thousands of spaceships were floating adrift in space, it was immediately apparent that the small treasure fleet was not an isolated incident and that they had inadvertently traveled into a cursed region of space where lost ships accumulated and were partially harvested for some unknown purpose. The transport ship eventually made it back into known space, the crew mere shells of their former selves. Word quickly spread about the legendary ship graveyard and how its vast fortunes were guarded by unknown terrors. The crewmembers themselves were all either committed to insane asylums or had committed suicide and all firsthand knowledge of the encounter quickly ceased to be available. The second encounter A few years after the initial discovery of the ship graveyard, an escape shuttle from the pirate cruiser The Androsian Harlot was discovered floating in space, its fuel drained and its homing beacon and life support the only systems still functioning. The space pirate on board was as pale as death and managed to tell a strange tale of what happened to him and his crew before he finally died of shock. His story was about how the group of space pirates he was serving with narrowly escaped a Bleeding Heart patrol by jumping to a random point in space, a point that turned out to be the rumored spaceship graveyard. He continued on, describing countless ships orbiting a large, domed space station that was unlike anything created by any known species, filled with all manner of horrors and then recounting how he managed to betray his fellow shipmates in order to reach one of the ship’s escape shuttles. His last words before dying were that he would rather be shot at point blank than to return to the site of his lost ship, words that have since been remembered by all who live by space travel. Rediscovery Recently, there have been reports of a Razudan astronomer who was able to pinpoint the location of Point Blank after cross examining the accounts of the two surviving encounters with Point Blank with records of missing ships that seemed to match the descriptions of some of the ships in the graveyard. It is unknown as to whether she actually found Point Blank, but it is fairly common knowledge among most sources of gossip that she had recently chartered a small scouting vessel for an unspecified trip and had returned from it only to destroy all of her research before disappearing from society. Category:Locations